Business NotesABC’s ‘Rising Star’ Juggles Time Zones to Allow For Live Voting
By Cynthia Littleton, Variety.com - May 29, 2014

ABC’s new talent competition series “Rising Star” revolves around real-time live voting by viewers to determine which singers advance through the various rounds.

The show has been a hit in Israel and other territories, but the big question for the U.S. rendition is how producers would grapple with the pesky issue of time zone differences across the vast expanse of the 50 states.

The solution derived by exec producers Ken Warwick and Nicolle Yaron is to work live cut-ins to the West Coast airing that would reflect voting done by left-coast viewers. The show, set to premiere on Sunday June 22, will air live in most of the country — 9-11 p.m. ET, 8-10 p.m. CT and 7-9 p.m. MT — to accommodate the real-time voting format. West Coast viewers will still be able to influence some of the competition by tipping the scales for contestants who may not get enough votes in the East Coast airing to advance.

According to the “Rising Star” rulebook, contestants have to have a thumbs-up from 70% of those voting to advance to the next round.

Yaron said they spent time studying how sports and news producers handle time-zone challenges and decided that live cut-ins were the way to go. “Rising Star” will be produced out of L.A., allowing producers and talent to adjust on the fly during the West Coast airing. ABC affiliates in Mountain time zones agreed to shift their time slot back an hour in view of the format.

“The clever thing with this show is that there’s no waiting until the end of the show to go to the phones,” Warwick, an “American Idol” alum said. “When you hit your app with yes or no, the result hits the broadcast screen within one and a half seconds. By the time the kid finishes the song, we’ll know whether (he or she) is moving on.”

Personally there is nothing that is going to get me to watch a show live. If that is the only option then I will not be watching the show. I started time shifting my TV watching back in the mid 80's. I would have no desire to go back to the old ways of wathcing TV.

When I watch a live show, or even a tape-delayed show that I want to watch immediately is start watching after the show had begun, e.g., for a 1-hour show, start watching after it had been on for 15 minutes; for a 2-hour show like America's Got Talent is start watching half an hour after the show started airing, and I usually come very close (after fast forwarding past the commercials) to finishing the viewing at the same time the show finishes airing. Even though I don't recall ever voting on one of the voting shows, I could see that working out well for a voting show.

So DVR isn't necessarily incompatible to live voting for a show if the voting is to take place after the show had aired. But it probably wouldn't work if you are to vote during the show before all the acts had aired.

The show is on Sunday, not a work day, so what’s wrong with 6-8 PM PDT, 5-7 PM in Alaska and 3-5 PM in Hawaii?

I had the same thought at first, but then it hit me: the reason is sportscast overruns. Trying to air the show live in the Pacific Zone or Alaska or Hawaii would lead to an uncomfortable dilemma of lopping off the end of the game Heidi-style, lopping off the beginning of "Rising Star" and disenfranchising the West for the part of the show they don't see, or delaying "Rising Star" until after the sportscast and defeating the purpose (might as well delay it until 9 PM local time then).

But what regional sporting events will west coast ABC affiliates have on Sunday afternoons in summer?

Remember that any nationally televised event that would cause problems at 6 PM Pacific would also overrun the 9 PM broadcast on the east coast.

NBA and NHL broadcasts are all national at this point, the NFL exhibition season hasn’t started and when it does, a Sunday night broadcast could be a problem anywhere in the country, not just on the west coast. I think ESPN has national exclusivity for MLB on Sunday evening, so no issues there. Golf is national. Racing is national. What else is there?

Sports overruns can be a problem at 6 PM in the Eastern and Central time zones, but I don’t see the issue at 6 PM Pacific.

But what regional sporting events will west coast ABC affiliates have on Sunday afternoons in summer?

No idea.&#160; I don't follow sports at all.&#160; I know that there are such things as televised games but very few particulars about them.

Quote:

Originally Posted by joblo

Remember that any nationally televised event that would cause problems at 6 PM Pacific would also overrun the 9 PM broadcast on the east coast.

Of course.&#160; That's why it would have to be something local or regional.

Still, the Pacific Zone's prime time on Sunday evenings starts at 7 PM, and airing "Rising Star" contemporaneously across the lower forty-eight would require giving up an hour of local programming to begin it at 6 PM PT (or shift it to 10 PM PT).&#160; Any delay to let the Pacific Zone vote only on borderline acts would have to be at least until 8 PM PT, when the live show ends, so they might as well go for 9 PM PT and be able to advertise the same schedule in both the Eastern and Pacific Zones.

[This is about a summer show, so I guess I could have written "PDT" instead of "PT" above ...]

Well, we'll see whether the PDT vote rescues any of those who didn't make it, though I expect not; none who missed 70% were near enough to it not to need a surprising variation in the vote there.&#160; Also, we don't know how the celebrity experts’ votes during the live show will figure into the PDT viewer vote; will they be added in the same way, or will it take 70% of the PDT voting viewership to save a contestant who didn't make it during the live show?

Is this thread solely for the time zone issue, or may we discuss other things about the show here?&#160; For example, on both of my smartphones, one running Android 4.0.4 and one with Android 4.1.2, the amber sliders for checking in were sluggish and unresponsive, much more difficult to get to move than the red and blue sliders for voting.&#160; Buttons to tap would have been easier to use, but I guess someone in the design department thought they were too easy to tap unintentionally.&#160; Also, on both of my phones, if you tapped the Twitter link after casthing a vote there was no way back, and I had to go to Manage Apps to close the app forcibly, reopen it, and check in again in order to resume using the app; perhaps the iOS and Windows versions didn't have that problem?

The contestants’ photos in the app were odd: Jesse Kinch and Colin Huntley both looked female in their photos but not so in the least on the TV screen.&#160; (Immediately after Kinch finished his song, his previously soft speaking voice was as strong as his singing voice, but it softened again shortly thereafter.)&#160; Also, where did the app's bare-shouldered photo of Macy Kate come from, given that her dress in it was not what she wore in her video nor what she wore to the show.&#160; It makes me wonder whether it was all as big a surprise for her as it was put on to be.

I thought the wall was supposed to be a visual barrier for the mentors and the studio audience, but they commented on Beyond 5's dance moves, so somehow they saw them.

The show's starting on in the Pacific Zone now, and I wonder how it plays there and what the app displays during the performances of contestants who were voted through by viewers in the three more easterly zones.

Finally, that attempted joke about using the bathroom during a commercial break: what good is it to take your device with you and keep the app running if you can't see and hear the television in the bathroom?&#160; The app didn't stream the show, after all.

It's a "Once and Done" for me. I'm out simply for the fact of the maudlin into crap on each artist. I really don't give a damn if your church group or extended family is rooting for you. All I care about is if you can sing. They should have just paraded the potentials up on stage, let them sing and be done with it. I actually voted against a few performers based on their backgrounds, not their talent.

That, plus the show seemed extremely padded with stuff just to get a few more commercial in. TV at it's worst.

Can someone please explain to me what in the world the onscreen voting graphic represented? Why did it start at 0% and keep moving up? Shouldn't have started somewhere in the middle and then adjusted up and down depending on how the additional votes came in? When it's at 20%, it means what? Only 20% of the people voted for that person to go on? Of course not. Or is there some total vote number that they need to hit (not a percentage of the vote) and they were 20% there?

Also, that graphic that was always at the bottom saying voting open or whatever it said, I don't remember, was horribly designed as it looked to me like the typical "loading" graphic on a smartphone. I was thinking that something else was supposed to come up, but it wasn't because it still needed to be loaded.

Can someone please explain to me what in the world the onscreen voting graphic represented? Why did it start at 0% and keep moving up? Shouldn't have started somewhere in the middle and then adjusted up and down depending on how the additional votes came in? When it's at 20%, it means what? Only 20% of the people voted for that person to go on? Of course not. Or is there some total vote number that they need to hit (not a percentage of the vote) and they were 20% there?

I had been wondering the same thing until Groban said on air (and he repeated it later) that if you check in for a vote on a given contestant but then you don't cast a vote, it counts as a no.&#160; Therefore the sliding scale represented the percentage of yeses so far out of the number of check-ins [or maybe .79 of that figure; see below], plus seven percentage points for each yes from a celebrity expert.&#160; One could not withdraw or change a vote once it was cast, so the reading on the scale could only increase as yeses came in.

Meanwhile, I got answers to some of my questions from last night by following the app's behavior during the last half-hour of the PDT repeat.&#160; It showed everything the same (except for the vote results) as it had three hours earlier, with no indication in the app of whether the contestant had already been voted through by the MDT/CDT/EDT viewers and thus the PDT vote was academic, or the M/C/E zones had rejected the contestant and this was the act's second and last chance.&#160; Something may have appeared on the (television) screens of PDT viewers, of course, but I would not know.&#160; In any case, after the PDT repeat was over, the app recapped their vote results, with slightly differing numbers for the contestants (but the same ones who passed the East vote passed again, and those who failed before failed again), so it does appear that the PDT vote was actually tallied even for those who had passed three hours before.&#160; For the record, I followed the app during the last three performances of the PDT repeat, not checking in to vote on Colin Huntley or Summer Collins [as I'd already voted regarding them three hours earlier] and checking in for the already-advancing Macy Kate and casting a harmless no just to see if I could vote again (and apparently I could, so if a favorite of yours fails the East vote, note the time, restart the app about 2h50m later, and support him/her/them again during the West vote).

IIRC the top two were reversed in the West, with Jesse Kinch outscoring Macy Kate by one percentage point: he had his same 92% as he had had in the East vote but she got 91% in the West versus her 93% in the East.

Since the vote was retaken in the West whether it counted or not, that also answered my question about the celebrity experts’ votes.&#160; They were unchanged from three hours earlier -- after all, the show was not reperformed -- but their yeses were counted afresh.

Now, here's one thing I'm not sure of: I had the impression that the calculation was

That's another thing that's done real poorly. If someone finishes at 71% and gets all 3 judges voite, does that mean they only got 50% of the public positively voting for them?

That depends on which of the two formulas I posted is right.&#160; if it's the second one, then 50% of viewers who checked in for that contestant's voting flicked "yes" and 50% flicked either "no" or&#160; neither.&#160; (I'm guessing that the reason one must check in for each contestant is that people might watch only part of the show as it's broadcast, so those who a given performance should not be counted in the denominator for that contestant.)&#160; If the second formula I posted is correct, then .50/.79 of the viewers who checked in voted yes; that's about 63% of them.

The more I think about it, the more it makes sense that votes by checked-in viewers would count for 79% of the score and each celebrity expert's vote for 7%.&#160; If that's right, in order to stay in the competition a contestant with noes from all three experts would need yeses from .70/.79 or over 88% of the checked-in viewers in the E/C/M Zones or .70/.79 of the checked-in viewers in the Pacific Zone.

(I'll comply with the show's own terminology "celebrity experts," which they use because they want to hype that everybody who installs the app is a "judge," but I think it's a safe assumption that when people posting in this thread say "judges," they mean Mr. Bridges, Ms. Sebert, and Mr. Paisley.)

Admittedly, it was tempting to vote against Olivia & Daniel and Beyond 5 immediately based on their clichéed song choices, but I held off and listened to them for a while.&#160; Then I voted against them because of their performances (not that I'm any better, but I'm not on nationwide television claming to be good).&#160; All of my ten votes, as it turned out, lined up exactly with those of the majority; that makes me feel very ordinary and average.

Last edited by dattier; 06-23-2014 at 12:53 PM.
Reason: noticed a typo and an outright mistake

I was not a big fan of the premiere. I really did not like how Ludicrous (I believe that is his name) acted as the judge with his stupid behavior when he would vote (especially a no). Not very professional.

Unlike last week, where my votes matched the majority every time, this week several of my yeses failed and several of my noes passed.&#160; So maybe I'm not so run-of-the-mill.&#160; Meanwhile, I'm going to reboot the app at 11 PM CDT to see whether the West Coast saves Shameia Crawford or Megan Tibbits or both.&#160; The 69% and 68% respectively that they got in the East vote must have been really frustrating, and I'm sure they'll be watching the PDT feed (since they were in Los Angeles early this evening to perform on "Rising Star," after all).

Edit later Sunday night: Crawford got 71% in the PDT vote and was saved.&#160; We'll know Tibbits's result when her segment has aired there.

Edit Tuesday evening: Tibbits's score, like Crawford's, also was two points higher in the West than the East, so she was up to 70% and was also saved.&#160; I'd turned off the computer for the night by the time that happened and was going to post this addendum Monday morning but didn't remember until tonight; sorry.

I think we're getting this format in the UK, or a variant of it. However voting during a live show is nothing new to us in single time-zone countries - it's common on the major talent shows this side of the pond.

Of course our X Factors, Got Talents and Idols use it but it also includes probably the biggest phone voting TV show of them all - The Eurovision Song Contest (where around 40 European-ish countries compete to win - across two semi-finals and a final - decided 50% by viewer phone/text/app votes and 50% by local jury votes on a country-by-country basis. In fact Eurovision straddles multiple time-zones, but is shown live in all of them)

The Eurovision Song Contest … straddles multiple time-zones, but is shown live in all of them

How many zones does it reach, though?&#160; I'd guess three: Britain/Ireland/Portugal, CE(S)T, and EE(S)T.&#160; If "Rising Star" needed to be shown in only three time zones there would be no problem; it's having a fourth time zone involved that throws the monkeywrench into the works.

On another note, if I counted right seventeen acts have been voted through (including Shameia Crawford and Megan Tibbits, who were saved the the PDT vote last week).&#160; The West vote has always been within a few points of the East vote, so it's highly unlikely that there will be any saves tonight.

Edit: So how will they be paired off for duels if there are an odd number of acts?&#160; (Maybe, because her 93% East vote in Week 1 was the highest score of the auditions, Macy Kate Marshburn gets a bye?)&#160; That must be why at the end of the July 6 PDT broadcast, the app displayed (approximate quote) "We welcome Unselfish back into the competition"; Unselfish must have had the highest score among contestants who didn't reach 70% East or West, though in comparison to Cliff Cody (with Beyond 5, Rye Davis, and Egypt Dixon close behind) it looks as though the producers weighted East and West equally with one another rather than in proportion to the total number of check-ins.&#160; It's rather hard to believe that the second most populous of the four timezones would have as many voters as the other three combined, but perhaps there is more information we don't see when the figures are presented to us rounded to the nearest percent.

Anyhow, this way there are eighteen duelers and three shows of three duels each.&#160; How they'll handle nine winners is another question, and what they'll do if the East and West votes pick different winners for the same duel is yet another.

Also, how was it decided who'd face whom in the first round of dueling?&#160; By comparability of style?

I'm going to have a rough time choosing between Lisa Punch and Alice E. Lee next week, that's for sure, unless one of them does something really bad and falls flat on her face, and Will Roth can't be happy about facing Jesse Kinch.&#160; (The other duel next week is Sarah Darling vs. Megan Tibbits.)

How many zones does it reach, though? I'd guess three: Britain/Ireland/Portugal, CE(S)T, and EE(S)T. If "Rising Star" needed to be shown in only three time zones there would be no problem; it's having a fourth time zone involved that throws the monkeywrench into the works.

Russia take part and so show the programme live across all of their timezones I believe (from GMT+3 to GMT+12 and including most in-between)

So the show goes out live across 12 hours of timezones (though can't imagine the ratings in some of them are that high!) GMT all the way to GMT+12 (Magadan bit of Russia I believe) - including GMT, GMT+1, GMT+2, GMT+4, GMT+7 (and quite a few others)

I may be wrong - but I think the whole of Russia can vote (and thus watch the show live)

Russia take part and so show the programme live across all of their timezones I believe (from GMT+3 to GMT+12 and including most in-between)

So the show goes out live across 12 hours of timezones (though can't imagine the ratings in some of them are that high!) GMT all the way to GMT+12 (Magadan bit of Russia I believe) - including GMT, GMT+1, GMT+2, GMT+4, GMT+7 (and quite a few others)

I may be wrong - but I think the whole of Russia can vote (and thus watch the show live)

Thanks for explaining that further, Sneals2000.&#160; I had no idea that it went into even the westernmost parts of Russia.

So I watched the West edition of last night's "Rising Star" and Groban stated explicitly that, because there were nineteen contestants who passed audition and they need an even number for the duels (still trying to figure out how I got seventeen: yes, I did include Crawford and Tibbits), they were passing the remaining act that got "the highest combined vote," which could mean the greatest raw number of viewer yeses regardless of the number of check-ins or the votes of the experts, and that that was Unselfish.

[Edit to rephrase some things and to remove the spoiler markings now that it's aired in the Pacific Zone.]

So, the first broadcast of duels is over.

Individual pairs were determined by the producers, apparently intended to pit similar performers against one another.&#160; Then for each pair an off-screen coin toss decides who performs first.&#160; The viewer doesn't choose between them but rather gives each of them a separate yes or a no (an abstention after checking in for a vote is probably a no, just as in the auditions).&#160; The celebrity experts have 7% of the total apiece as in the auditions.

The one who goes first performs with the wall up and gets the advantage of gauging audience reaction (an audience that includes the opponent, as each gets to watch the other).&#160; Then the wall goes down, the second performer comes on (with the advantage of knowing how the opponent performed and what score is needed).&#160; The threshold for raising the wall is breaking the first performer's (E/C/M) score, instead of a flat 70%.

The winner from each pair plus the highest West Coast scorer among the other three move on.

The app showed the score for the first of each pair (Alice J. Lee, Megan Tibbits, Will Roth) in blue and the second performer's (Lisa Punch, Sarah Darling, and Jesse Kinch respectively) score in red if it didn't beat that of the first performer, blue if it did.

Lee over Punch, just barely; Tibbits over Darling, just barely; Kinch over Roth by a wide margin.&#160; In the E/C/M zones Darling's losing percentage equaled Lee's winning score.&#160; As the only winner who performed second of the pair, Kinch was also the only one who raised the wall.

In the Pacific Zone, results were similar.&#160; Punch and Darling both scored 67% there, but Punch's 67.43% was higher than Darling's 67.34%, so Punch got the wildcard spot, while Darling and Roth are out of the competition now.

Of course, since this show was only one hour long, ABC could have aired it at 10 PM EDT and the whole lower forty-eight could have watched simultaneously with no East/West split.&#160; Too late now.

Next week's duels are April Lockhart vs. Sonnet Simmons, Austin French vs. Adam Jaymes, and Macy Kate vs. Gabby Nicole (Macy Marshburn vs. Gabrielle Tyson if you prefer).&#160; That will leave four pairs for the third week of duels, so it is a disadvantage to be dueling in the third week if the PDT viewers can save only one of the four who lose in the E/C/MDT vote.&#160; Then again, if the producers want an even number of winners for a second round of duels, they can't pass five people on July 27, but rather four (which would disenfranchise the PDT viewers) or six (which would make being on in the third week of duels an advantage).&#160; We'll see how they handle it.&#160; It seems that the number of installments the show needs to run depended on how many contestants passed the auditions the first three weeks.&#160; All we know at this point is that Groban referred to the next round as "the semifinals."

Last edited by dattier; 07-14-2014 at 12:23 PM.
Reason: update after West Coast airing, plus desire to rephrase

Gabrielle Nicole Tyson was utterly robbed.&#160; Despite yeses from all three experts, she scored only 49% East/51% West, lowest of the night, which means she got only 28/79 East / 30/79 West of the audience vote.&#160; "River Deep Mountain High" was worse for her than it was for Phil Spector.&#160; Based on their auditions I expected that she and Marshburn would get the highest scores of the night and that the loser between them would be the West Coast save, but that wasn't how it turned out tonight, and Tyson and Adam Jaymes will leave the competition.

After several of the performances tonight Groban asked for commentary from only two of the experts, blaming time constraints.&#160; It's going to be rough fitting in four duels next week, then, since next week's show also has a one-hour slot.&#160; The matchups for next week include two co-ed duels, something we haven't seen yet: Joshua Peavy vs. Karen Hornsby and Shameia Crawford vs. Unselfish.&#160; The other pairings will be strictly female: Dana Williams vs. Audrey Kate Geiger (who, unless the announcer erred, has now joined Macy Marshburn in a folie à deux of thinking that "Kate" is a surname; abc.com/risingstar still uses her full name, but she was announced for next week as just "Audrey Kate") and Morgan Higgins vs. Maneepat Molloy.

(If I'm going to get on the cases of those who are too cool for surnames, Adam Jaymes probably is really Adam James Something and if so should be in that same bin.)

Last edited by dattier; 07-20-2014 at 10:04 PM.
Reason: update and removal of spoiler tags after PDT airing has ended

@bspiratioan
: I see you deleted your question but there was a copy in my notifications.

During the West Coast airing, the app shows pretty much the same stuff except for saluting selected West Coast viewers (as "judges") instead of some from the rest of the country, and stating at the end what differences the West Coast vote made.&#160; As for the content broadcast to the Pacific Zone, you can see that on abc.com or VOD, because both carry the West Coast edition, which compares the scores from both areas and as necessary has interruptions from Groban with appropriate updates.&#160; I watch it on Mondays just to see the comparative scales during the songs and the cut-ins.&#160; As I've said before, for these one-hour installments, the whole show could be at 10 PM EDT and then the entire lower 48 could watch simultaneously

I listened again to the announcement over the closing credits of next week's matchups and realized that the announcer who dropped Geiger's surname for her is Groban or someone who sounds just like him.&#160; (Can't be positive: I though the announcer on "Parker Lewis Can't Lose" was costar Timothy Stack but it turned out to be producer Tom Straw, and I had to console myself with having gotten the initials right.)

As for the content broadcast to the Pacific Zone, you can see that on abc.com or VOD, because both carry the West Coast edition,

Thanks for posting this. I wouldn’t have had the patience to sit through the VOD with no fast forward otherwise.

I haven’t really been watching the show, because celebrity-judged singing competitions are not by cup of tea, but I have been curious about how this east/west difference would work, so I have recorded the east coast airing and scanned through some of it to get the idea. It does seem to me, after watching some of this week's west coast version while surfing the web, that west coast viewers are not really seeing the same show/competition as eastern viewers, so I think the show is a bit of a sham.

Quote:

Originally Posted by dattier

As I've said before, for these one-hour installments, the whole show could be at 10 PM EDT and then the entire lower 48 could watch simultaneously

Agreed.

But more than that, I’d like to know how many ultimate “winners” this show is going to have, one or two, i.e. a single winner for the whole country or one for each coast. Because if both coasts are going to participate in determining a single winner instantaneously, then both coasts are going to have to see the last head-to-head competition live.

It does seem to me, after watching some of this week's west coast version while surfing the web, that west coast viewers are not really seeing the same show/competition as eastern viewers ...

No, it's the same, with the same performances, the same comments from the experts, and except for the cut-ins the same commentary from Groban, as had aired here three hours prior.

Good point about choosing the final winner, though; maybe that will be in a one-hour show at 10 PM EDT shown simultaneously across the lower forty-eight, or maybe the decision will be held off until votes are collected from the Pacific Zone.

One screen in the app said that Houston is the "votiest" city in the country, followed by Atlanta and (I am not bowled over with flattery) Chicago.&#160; The accompanying map had a huge star at Houston, one nearly as big at Atlanta, a smaller one at Chicago, and three yet smaller ones (that looked about the same size as each other to me) at Los Angeles, San Antonio or Austin (hard to tell), and Philadelphia.&#160; I presume that those figures are relative to each metropolitan area's population.

Another screen pointed out that women outnumber men among the (viewer) judges.&#160; How can they be so cocksure of identifying the gender of everyone who downloaded the app or of everyone who checks in to vote?&#160; Some people have pictures of their pets or of objects from their professions or hobbies instead of their own faces; some don't authorize use of a picture (I don't, and I'm signed in under my Twitter profile, and its picture isn't of a person anyway); many have unclear first names.

But the app worked better and didn't crash, though it refused to display Karen Hornsby's picture during her song until I restarted it (after having cast my vote regarding her, just in case it had trouble restarting before voting ended).

Audrey Kate Geiger still uses her full name, to clear that up, though it seems she's often referred to as "Audrey Kate" as a two-word given name (Paisley did call her "Audrey" once).

There were four duels tonight but only one West Coast save, so it was indeed a disadvantage to be in this week's duels and to be eligible for one save out of four instead of one out of three.&#160; Groban kept things moving so that all four matchups could be completed without overrun.

Results, now that the PDT broadcast has ended:

Maneepat Molloy over Morgan Higgins, Shameia Crawford over Unselfish handily, Audrey Kate Geiger over Dana Williams, Joshua Peavy over Karen Hornsby.&#160; Unselfish were the only act tonight to face the wall and fail to raise it.&#160; Williams and Hornsby both scored 67% E/C/M (both doing Carole King songs, coincidentally), higher than Molloy's winning 66%, but Williams's PDT 69% exceeded Hornsby's PDT 66%, so Williams stays and Hornsby goes.&#160; Crawford and Geiger bested their audition scores, which I think no one else has done.

Groban has called the next round "semifinals" and the site has referred to it as "quarter-finals," but it seems the official name is "Round of 13" (a name that couldn't be assigned until auditions were over and it was known how many would be in the duels).&#160; In next week's two-hour show, the remaining thirteen will all perform, and by some method to deal with the time zones that hasn't been divulged yet, eight will be selected to continue and five will be eliminated: maybe (just my guess) the six highest scorers in the E/C/M vote plus the two highest PDT scorers among the other seven?

The Round of 13 was handled this way: each expert's vote counted for only 5%, leaving 85% for the audience vote.&#160; There were six light blue chairs and one red chair (the "hot seat") provided for performers who had already sung.&#160; Each of the first six sang with the wall up and then sat in a blue chair after singing, and after the seventh sang (also with the wall up), the one ranking seventh on the leader board -- yes, there was a leader board tonight -- took the hot seat.

Each of the remaining six contestants performed with the wall down, the wall-raising percentage being the score of the current occupant of the hot seat.&#160; A contestant who didn't reach the hot seat occupant's score and didn't raise the wall then sat elsewhere with others not in the top seven; when a contestant did beat the hot seat occupant's score and raised the wall, the person in the hot seat left it, whoever was then seventh moved to the hot seat, and the contestant who just ousted the previous hot seat occupant got a seat (it would have been the hot seat had that person been seventh at the time, but that didn't happen; tonight every one of the last six to sing who got into the top seven got into the top six [though one was moved to the hot seat later], and it was someone previously in the top six who moved to the hot seat).

Mathematically, the contestant at the top of the leader board after the seventh performance couldn't be eliminated, since there were seven guaranteed spots and only six more contestants performing.

The top seven E/C/M scores and one West Coast save would go on to the quarterfinals.

The mobile app displayed blue score scales for the first seven performers and for those of the last six who raised the wall, and red scales for those of the last six who didn't raise the wall.

Results:

Top seven alphabetically from the E/C/M vote, heading to the quarter-finals:

Tonight, one hour at 9 EP/8 C/7 M; per the app, all eight remaining contestants perform, two are eliminated.&#160; I'm guessing that means five top E/C/M scorers plus one PDT save are retained.&#160; Last week, when they pared from thirteen to eight, I thought it would be six and two (which would have meant keeping Lisa Punch in the competition and eliminating Audrey Kate Geiger instead), but it was seven and one.

Yes, this time my guess was right: next week's semifinalists are tonight's five top E/C/M scorers (Austin French, Jesse Kinch, Audrey Kate Geiger, Joshua Peavy, and Dana Williams) plus one West Coast Save (Maneepat Molloy, to the disappointment of Shameia Crawford, who had handily outscored Molloy in the E/C/M vote but was behind her in the PDT polling: April Lockhart came in a distant eighth in both votes and had her own disappointment).&#160; Consequently, there were only four blue chairs plus the red host seat.

Each expert's vote counted for only 3%, allocating 91% of the score to viewer votes.&#160; Additionally, to fit in eight performances, the check-in times were cut to sixty seconds each.

All three experts had voted for French, but Brad Paisley voted against Kinch, disliking the song choice.&#160; French outpolled Kinch in the E/C/M vote by one point, so Kinch actually got more of the E/C/M viewer vote than French.&#160; (In the PDT vote, Kinch outpolled French even without the help of Paisley's 3%.)

If last week's rules had been what I expected (I had guessed they'd pass six top E/C/M votegetters plus two PDT saves, but it was seven and one), Geiger wouldn't have been here this week (Lisa Punch would have).&#160; But this week she did far better; rather than being an edge case, in both of this week's votes she came in a close third behind French and Kinch, with Peavy a distant fourth.

The app promised that Kinch's song would be "a hit from the 70s."&#160; It was "Money (That's What I Want)" by Berry Gordy Jr. and Janie Bradford, and as far as I'm concerned the hit was Barrett Strong's original from 1959.&#160; Of course there were covers in the 1970s but hits?&#160; (Groban associated with the Beatles’ cover version, of all things.)&#160; Maybe the app programmers were thinking of "For the Love of Money" by the O'Jays or "Money" by Pink Floyd?&#160; I'm going to put on "Don't Bet Money Honey" by Linda Scott and hit the hay.

The PDT broadcast of the semifinals is over.&#160; Three were to move on: the top three in the E/C/M vote plus one West Coast Save.&#160; Thus there were two blue chairs plus the red hot seat.

Each expert's vote counted for only 1% this time, allocating 97% of the weight to the viewer vote.

Jesse Kinch, Austin French, and Dana Williams respectively won, placed, and showed in the E/C/M vote and will be in the finals; they also had the top three PDT scores in the same order, FWIW.&#160; Although Joshua Peavy was fourth in the E/C/M vote, Audrey Kate Geiger outpolled him on the West Coast and was saved, so Geiger is a finalist and Peavy has been eliminated, as was Maneepat Molloy.

(As I love Geiger's voice and Peavy rubs me the wrong way, I'm pretty glad about how the West Coast Save went.)

The app was messed up tonight: it called Molloy's song "Chandalier" [sic] whenever it came up, called Williams "Dan" at one point, briefly called Kinch "Jess" but corrected it quickly.&#160; The mistakes were repeated during the PDT broadcast, except perhaps that with Kinch's first name, where I could have missed the moment while the misspelling was on screen.&#160; (The show's area on abc.com frequently calls Peavy "Joshua Peavey."&#160; They're rather careless.)

The finals are next week.&#160; I'm wondering how they'll handle the timezone situation.&#160; The show is still scheduled for 9:00 PM EDT (rather than 10 PM EDT, such that all four lower-48 timezones could tune in simultaneously), and I can't imagine that at 10 PM EDT they'll announce a winner with no input from people on PDT, so my guess is that they'll hold off any final results and announce them at 1 AM EDT when the PDT airing ends and all votes are in, to repeat them on "Good Morning America" or some other ABC daytime show.